


To Build A Home

by ahappyphil



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2010, Comfort, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25647484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahappyphil/pseuds/ahappyphil
Summary: Dan spends a night in the valley and thinks back on the last year
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 40
Kudos: 87





	To Build A Home

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Renee for beta, and to everyone who has been so kind and encouraging this last month <3

He knows this route by heart now. Knows how many stops left until it starts to feel like coming home. Not home exactly, it’s technically not even Phil’s home anymore. Nevertheless, this tired old bus and this winding road getting closer and closer to one of the few places in this world that make him feel safe fills him with a much needed comfort. 

Phil still comes to visit his parents every other week or so since he moved out in August. Dan would tease him about it, but he knows how important family is to the whole Lester clan. How Phil will probably always be a bit of a mummy’s boy in a way that fills him with just a hint of jealousy. Plus, he inevitably comes home with enough food to last them a good week so he’s not going to complain. 

He’s tagging along this time after a particularly stern text from Kath demanding his presence for dinner. He’s heard her asking about him on the phone to Phil almost every night since he came back from hospital a week ago, dozing in and out of sleep on Phil’s lap hearing whispered _”Mum, he’s fine. Yes, he’s eating. Yeah, I made sure he’s drinking water. No, his parents haven’t come to visit. Yeah. Okay.”_

The rain is falling heavier than expected, so Phil’s dad meets them at the bus stop. Normally, they’d both refuse but he’s freezing his tits off in the storm and Phil’s anxious about him exerting too much physical energy from the trek to the house. 

He thought he’d seen the depths of Phil’s hypochondriac tendencies and general anxious demeanor before, but nothing compares to the walking ball of stress he’s been since they walked through the doors of A&E. He’s been treating Dan like a fragile doll since bringing him home from surgery. And while sure, he’s quite enjoyed the extra attention and doting, there’s a line (the line is not letting them fuck for a week after Dan insisting he’s perfectly capable). 

Nigel makes small talk on the short drive to the house. It’s pleasant enough in the way that it’s been a year, but they still don’t really know each other. He probably couldn’t hold a conversation with him for an extended period if there weren’t another member of the family there. But even that is a small comfort in its own right. 

More than anything, more than appeasing Phil and his family, he’s craving comfort. Specially, the comfortable familiarity of the Lester home and what it represents. It’s a bit silly, considering how close in proximity he and Phil are now, how despite him living in the uni halls he spends more nights with Phil than not, that this house could offer him anything the boy next to him can’t. 

This house is safety. It’s the feeling of someone loving him wholeheartedly. These walls watched him fall in love and bare his soul and find joy again. Seeing the lights from the lounge illuminate the now flooded street as the pull into the driveway has him already feeling warm. 

*

Kath made too much food as usual. She scolds Phil for making another plate before everyone else is done, but keeps piling on more roast to his own as she starts her inquisition. At first about his health and whether or not he’s actually told his family what happened (he makes a note to yell at Phil later for ratting on him about that). She tuts sympathetically when he talks about the hospital room as though she hasn’t heard it at least twice by now. 

She asks about his studies and uni course. The answers to which aren’t technically lies, just omissions about how deeply he fucking hates his program and has at least one spiral a week about his future. He doesn’t mention that he hasn’t actually gone to a lecture in two weeks and can’t remember the last time he showered before coming here today. 

Nigel asks about future job opportunities in law and Phil seems pleased he’s out of the hot seat in that area for once. The need to impress them, to make them proud in some strange way, rears its head again. It makes him feel like a kid, not like in his own home where the disappointment is palpable every time he’s remotely candid about his life. Here he feels safe to fuck up sometimes without losing their respect. 

It’s been long enough now to know they genuinely do care about him, and not just as their son’s boyfriend. Kath will tell Phil to pass the phone so she can check in with him. Sometimes she’ll even reach out directly just to chat. There’s a satisfaction that comes with getting a text from her when she can’t get a hold of Phil, an understanding they have that Dan is his person. 

The warmth only settles in deeper as the night progresses. He feels it when he volunteers himself and Phil to wash up after dinner, and how no one fought him on it (other than Kath gently affirming if he’s sure he’s up to it) or called him a ‘guest’ in their house. Because he’s not anymore. 

He feels it when they all head into the lounge because Kath likes to end the night with a film, and he knows she’ll pick something gory because Phil got her hooked on horror in his youth. And then he feels an even better warmth when Phil pulls him closer on the couch with an arm around his shoulder. Because they’re comfortable enough to do that in front of his parents now. No one bats an eye to their constant need for spatial proximity anymore. To be fair, they’ve walked in on far worse. 

The storm hasn’t let up by the time the film is done and it’s apparent everyone is feeling the bone deep comfort that comes with a full belly and the sounds of thunder rolling through the hills accompanying the DVD menu screen. He’d rather rot right here in the sofa crease than get up and make the journey back to Manchester. 

As if by some kind of mum ESP, Kath lulls her head to the side from the opposite couch with a sleepy smile and utters “Right, you lot are staying here tonight. It’s a monsoon out there and that one is half dead anyway!” She nods to Phil, who is indeed showing his tell that he’s five minutes from crashing on the nearest available flat surface. 

It doesn’t take much persuasion to stay. He’s tired in more ways than one, and being back in the cocoon of garish blue and green might just be the thing to finally defeat his recent battle with insomnia. They stay their goodnights and he tries not to blush when Kath tells them to keep it down. 

The room is missing some of its Philness after him taking most of it with him to the city, but there’s still an air about the space that’s unchanged. Like a piece of his heart still clings to these walls. Being back here is like a fog of contentment. Nothing matters except for these four corners. The outside world can’t get to him here. 

There’s a handful of Phil’s clothes still kept in the dresser to change into, though he’d rather just strip and fall into bed. But then he remembers the lack of lock on the door and reluctantly climbs into a pair of too short pajama bottoms as Phil searches his desk drawers for his old glasses. 

Seeing the thin frames sends him right back to the first time he was in this room just over a year ago. To being so obsessed with seeing this version of Phil; unpolished and natural. It felt like a secret he was entrusted with keeping. Now this is the version he knows best. Now he wakes up almost every day to bedhead and morning breath and pre morning crankiness. It’s beautiful. 

The sheets smell too much like laundry soap and he misses the subtle blue light that used to come from the neon clock on the wall, but everything else- the way the bed creaks under him when he shifts his leg, the way the wind hits the window, Phil’s arms snug around his middle- is exactly, perfectly right. 

It’s far earlier than they usually go to bed, but Phil’s already out and Dan’s letting the warmness take over and decompress his bones. They’ll both probably wake up in the middle of the night because of it, but that’s okay. He’ll hopefully convince Phil to have a 2:00a.m. romp because his dick practically has cobwebs on it now and it’d honestly be a crime to sleep here and not come at least once. 

There’s a part of his brain that feels the need to lie awake and list all the ways his life is different now. He’s not the lost train wreck that first walked through these doors. Things are better now in some ways, worse in others. 

He still has no idea what the fuck he’s doing with his life and he still has days where he can’t get out of bed. But he’s managed a relationship for a full year without cocking it up. Uni definitely isn’t for him and the stress compounds almost constantly, but YouTube is becoming more of a viable option every day. He’s happier more days than not now. There’s a confidence with his own abilities and decisions that’s still relatively new. 

He likes looking around the now pitch black room and knowing he’s grown. He likes the pride that comes with being a better version of the person once treated this place like a lifeboat in the middle of a violent sea storm. He likes that the warmth he once only found up in the valley, he can now create in himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Reblog [here](https://ahappydnp.tumblr.com/post/625246741016576000/to-build-a-home) :)


End file.
